Houston Rockets News: Westbrook and Paul had meeting before boycott

The Houston Rockets are one of six teams sitting out of Wednesday’s games, which was announced shortly after Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook had a meeting.

In an unprecedented day for sports, all three NBA playoff games scheduled on Wednesday have been postponed in solidarity as a protest of the shooting of Jacob Blake. The pivotal Game 5 between the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder is one of those games, which was expected, given how unified the league has been when it comes to the push for social and racial justice.

In an NBATV segment Wednesday afternoon, Stephanie Ready reported that Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul had a meeting that lasted about 10 minutes shortly before it was announced that the game between their two teams would also be boycotted.

With Chris Paul being the president of The Players Association for the NBA, it would have been a big surprise if the Rockets and Thunder decided to move on with their game as scheduled. From the beginning, the league made it known that they weren’t just traveling to Orlando to compete for a title, but also to make their voices heard.

With the boycotting of pivotal playoff games, the NBA is back in the national spotlight as everyone looks to see what they will do next. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA is planning to reschedule all Game 5s for now, but the next steps won’t be decided without input from all NBA players still in the bubble that want their voices heard.

Every NBA player is invited to join the meeting in The Bubble at 8 PM to discuss how they'll proceed from today's boycotts, sources tell @ZachLowe_NBA and me.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 26, 2020

Even though the Rockets and Thunder are locked in the middle of an intense playoff battle, the meeting between CP3 and Russ shows exactly what the NBA is all about. The players have a huge platform, and they’re serious about using it.